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A hypothetical question is one that should be answered only in terms of validity, not soundness. (The soundness of the argument should be completely disregarded.) This means that the premise(s) (condition(s)) are assumed to be true, and it is assessed whether or not their truth leads to the conclusion, or the answer is deducted based on the truth of the premises.

For example, person 1 may ask, "if A, then B?" (B need not be a yes-or-no question.) A very practical person 2 may obstinately insist, "But A isn't true/can't be true/isn't relevant/isn't worth worrying about!" The only way to get such a person 2 to submit to actually entertaining the point of the question, no matter how much they might object to the premises, is for the first person to say, "It's a hyptothetical question!", possibly followed by, "Stop perseverating on the irrelevant details of whether or not A is true, and just answer it."

See also

• hypothesis
• rhetorical question
• logic
• argument
• validity
• soundness

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